Mike Y

Midship frames were easy, now I am in the area of extreme bevels:

 
Thanks to Mr. Hollom, who built his Oliver Cromwell from Hahn's plans and confirmed that these bevels are correct and could be trusted. If you missed his build log and fantastic model - it is here: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/1883-oliver-cromwellbeavers-prize-by-peter-mr-hollom-148/
 

After pre-beveling frames already look neat!
 
Current status: 20 frames installed, 20 frames produced and drying from the wipe-on-poly right now.

 
Oh, Oliver Cromell have just 40 frames, so I do not need to produce any more, whoo-hoo!
 
 

Mark, it would be fully planked from one side (no poly there) and fully opened from another side (even no wales).
This is the model that I used as a reference:

Christmas arrived early this time!
 
Was on a business trip to US, bought a lot of stuff from Lee Valley - miniature chisels, miniature block plane, sharpening system, wetstones, etc. Also grabbed a nice height gauge on ebay, it is more precise than my handmade wooden one.

The TSA officers in the airport were quite confused with all that set in my cabin luggage. Especially the height gage and a sharpening system looked really scary on the xray. Spent around 30min explaining that all that things are pretty secure, pff.
 
Already tried chisels and plane with a factory sharpening - wow, they are sharp! Cutting pear like butter. Nice!
 
Wood stash was also refilled - fresh batch of boxwood and pear from Arkowood, and Holly from Crown Timberyard. All of these are perfect! Interesting that box from Arkowood and Hobbymill perfectly match in color, while being produced on a different continents. 

Christmas arrived early this time!
 
Was on a business trip to US, bought a lot of stuff from Lee Valley - miniature chisels, miniature block plane, sharpening system, wetstones, etc. Also grabbed a nice height gauge on ebay, it is more precise than my handmade wooden one.

The TSA officers in the airport were quite confused with all that set in my cabin luggage. Especially the height gage and a sharpening system looked really scary on the xray. Spent around 30min explaining that all that things are pretty secure, pff.
 
Already tried chisels and plane with a factory sharpening - wow, they are sharp! Cutting pear like butter. Nice!
 
Wood stash was also refilled - fresh batch of boxwood and pear from Arkowood, and Holly from Crown Timberyard. All of these are perfect! Interesting that box from Arkowood and Hobbymill perfectly match in color, while being produced on a different continents. 

Yes! Their "miniature" section is amazing. Hope they will extend the miniature tool range

Christmas arrived early this time!
 
Was on a business trip to US, bought a lot of stuff from Lee Valley - miniature chisels, miniature block plane, sharpening system, wetstones, etc. Also grabbed a nice height gauge on ebay, it is more precise than my handmade wooden one.

The TSA officers in the airport were quite confused with all that set in my cabin luggage. Especially the height gage and a sharpening system looked really scary on the xray. Spent around 30min explaining that all that things are pretty secure, pff.
 
Already tried chisels and plane with a factory sharpening - wow, they are sharp! Cutting pear like butter. Nice!
 
Wood stash was also refilled - fresh batch of boxwood and pear from Arkowood, and Holly from Crown Timberyard. All of these are perfect! Interesting that box from Arkowood and Hobbymill perfectly match in color, while being produced on a different continents. 

Mark, it would be fully planked from one side (no poly there) and fully opened from another side (even no wales).
This is the model that I used as a reference:

Midship frames were easy, now I am in the area of extreme bevels:

 
Thanks to Mr. Hollom, who built his Oliver Cromwell from Hahn's plans and confirmed that these bevels are correct and could be trusted. If you missed his build log and fantastic model - it is here: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/1883-oliver-cromwellbeavers-prize-by-peter-mr-hollom-148/
 

After pre-beveling frames already look neat!
 
Current status: 20 frames installed, 20 frames produced and drying from the wipe-on-poly right now.

 
Oh, Oliver Cromell have just 40 frames, so I do not need to produce any more, whoo-hoo!
 
 

Yes! Their "miniature" section is amazing. Hope they will extend the miniature tool range

Christmas arrived early this time!
 
Was on a business trip to US, bought a lot of stuff from Lee Valley - miniature chisels, miniature block plane, sharpening system, wetstones, etc. Also grabbed a nice height gauge on ebay, it is more precise than my handmade wooden one.

The TSA officers in the airport were quite confused with all that set in my cabin luggage. Especially the height gage and a sharpening system looked really scary on the xray. Spent around 30min explaining that all that things are pretty secure, pff.
 
Already tried chisels and plane with a factory sharpening - wow, they are sharp! Cutting pear like butter. Nice!
 
Wood stash was also refilled - fresh batch of boxwood and pear from Arkowood, and Holly from Crown Timberyard. All of these are perfect! Interesting that box from Arkowood and Hobbymill perfectly match in color, while being produced on a different continents. 

Christmas arrived early this time!
 
Was on a business trip to US, bought a lot of stuff from Lee Valley - miniature chisels, miniature block plane, sharpening system, wetstones, etc. Also grabbed a nice height gauge on ebay, it is more precise than my handmade wooden one.

The TSA officers in the airport were quite confused with all that set in my cabin luggage. Especially the height gage and a sharpening system looked really scary on the xray. Spent around 30min explaining that all that things are pretty secure, pff.
 
Already tried chisels and plane with a factory sharpening - wow, they are sharp! Cutting pear like butter. Nice!
 
Wood stash was also refilled - fresh batch of boxwood and pear from Arkowood, and Holly from Crown Timberyard. All of these are perfect! Interesting that box from Arkowood and Hobbymill perfectly match in color, while being produced on a different continents. 

Yes! Their "miniature" section is amazing. Hope they will extend the miniature tool range

isn't Lee Valley great!          

Christmas arrived early this time!
 
Was on a business trip to US, bought a lot of stuff from Lee Valley - miniature chisels, miniature block plane, sharpening system, wetstones, etc. Also grabbed a nice height gauge on ebay, it is more precise than my handmade wooden one.

The TSA officers in the airport were quite confused with all that set in my cabin luggage. Especially the height gage and a sharpening system looked really scary on the xray. Spent around 30min explaining that all that things are pretty secure, pff.
 
Already tried chisels and plane with a factory sharpening - wow, they are sharp! Cutting pear like butter. Nice!
 
Wood stash was also refilled - fresh batch of boxwood and pear from Arkowood, and Holly from Crown Timberyard. All of these are perfect! Interesting that box from Arkowood and Hobbymill perfectly match in color, while being produced on a different continents. 

Christmas arrived early this time!
 
Was on a business trip to US, bought a lot of stuff from Lee Valley - miniature chisels, miniature block plane, sharpening system, wetstones, etc. Also grabbed a nice height gauge on ebay, it is more precise than my handmade wooden one.

The TSA officers in the airport were quite confused with all that set in my cabin luggage. Especially the height gage and a sharpening system looked really scary on the xray. Spent around 30min explaining that all that things are pretty secure, pff.
 
Already tried chisels and plane with a factory sharpening - wow, they are sharp! Cutting pear like butter. Nice!
 
Wood stash was also refilled - fresh batch of boxwood and pear from Arkowood, and Holly from Crown Timberyard. All of these are perfect! Interesting that box from Arkowood and Hobbymill perfectly match in color, while being produced on a different continents. 

I have started the capstan.  The diameter of the capstan on the Atalanta plans (as well as the Fly) is larger than shown in TFFM Vol 2, which represents Pegasus.  I redrew the capstan to reflect this.  The first thing I did was look at Greg's pictures in TFFM Vol 3.  Next, I re-read Dan's tutorial for Vulture's capstan.  Finally, I put wood to machine.  
 
After several years of threatening, I finally took the plunge and bought a Sherline mill.  I already own their lathe and so saved some money by using the motor from the lathe.  It takes less than two minutes to swap it out and that includes walking from one end of the house (where I have the lathe in my workshop) to where I set up the mill (better natural lighting this time of year).  I used English boxwood for the barrel and whelps to provide a subtle color contrast between the capstan and the framing.  The barrel wood has a few checks in it but the flaws will be hidden under the whelps.  The whelps are of good clear wood.
 
I took a square piece of boxwood and rounded it down to eight sides, like one would do for a mast.  I do not own a 4-jaw chuck and this made holding the wood blank easier in the 3-jaw chuck.  In the lathe, I turned the blank to the proper dimensions. I made all three sections longer than necessary to make sure there was sufficient length for final assembly.  
 

 
Now I was able to play with the new toy!  The upper barrel is divided into 12 sections for the 6 whelps and the lower barrel is divided into 10 sections for 5 whelps.  I mounted the blank onto a rotary table so that all of the sections could be milled to the same width.  The flats were milled while supporting the end of the blank to prevent downward deflection.  The upper and lower sections were then cut away from the central round section.
 

 

 

 

 
The next things to make were the whelps.  The upper and lower whelps are different in shape and width.  I traced the outline onto the end of a piece of boxwood, orienting the whelp along the grain. The blank was mounted into the vise, which was attached to a tilt table. The first one took over an hour (but half of that time was figuring out the correct setup); the second one took 30 minutes.  They will be sliced off the loaf when I am ready to install them.
 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 

Both Pegasus and Confederacy arrived at the new home without damage, Phew!
Movers did a great job of the packing.
Now to start building a new workshop.
 
Ben

Hello and thanks for warm words!
 
it's done now. I have fastened the stove on the deck. The cement is a bit darker now and looks better for me. The work on beams and knees go on further.
 

 

 
Alex

Thanks for the likes and comments.   Short update time.
 
I've laid 12 stakes of the 8" wide planks...  15 to go.   Looks rough but I'm seeing light so what appears to be gaps is just mismatch in thickness and shadows... I hope.
 
From the re-lining off I just finished a strake ago, I won't need a stealer at the stern.  Looking at the French ship monographs I have, a short, wide plank can be added such that the strake is continuous.  I've added one and probably won't need any more. From the dead flat, the strakes run from 8" to almost 4" and then back to 8" at the sternpost. 
 
On the bow side, the planks run from 8" at the dead flat and then eventually taper to 4".  However, at least one drop plank is needed which will be put in in my next two strakes.  I'm trying hard to keep scale on this even though it looks strange due to the scale (to my eye at least). 
 
First two pics show her in all her unsanded, rough looking planking.
 
The third pic is my side project, the longboat.  I needed a way to do this so thought, fiddled, thought, and then came up with a plan I think will work.  I'm using a variation of Chuck's method.  I did have to re-do this once already as for scale, the frames should be 2" (1/32") wide, but I kept breaking them and then realized there wasn't enough meat to hold the planks securely. So, I doubled the width of the frame.  We'll see where this leads.... hopefully not the scrap bin.
 
All in all, I'm pretty pleased.  There's some things I need to think about for the next ship, like is scale planking better or worse than eye-appeal cause these planks are relatively tiny compared to the planks I've used in the past.
 
Enough over-thinking for now... pressing on.
 

Thank you Brian, John, Janos and David .
 
Congratulations to you too Janos on taking out People's Choice. What was the other trophy you got? EDIT - Oh, I see now that I've looked at your post in Royal Caroline   .
 
Your carving really set the bow of Vulture off.
 
BTW - I had a great time too, more comments and conversations with the public and members alike than any other show I've been to
 
The finished binnacle, complete with two compasses, a lantern and it's chimney :
 

 
Well, Vulture has now gone to her final home - I delivered her to the Museum this morning. I forgot to take a pic of the installed Binnacle, so you'll have to take my word for it that it fits .
 
  Danny

Excuse me while I get my sea legs again.....but with the start of fall my workshop has come alive again.
 
I wanted to start with something smaller, so opted for the mast top supports.  Nothing too huge or taxing but it did involve careful measuring and a couple of slots....
 

 
The whole mast will be primed and painted - the mast head black.  Doesn't look too shabby for something that will be almost totally hidden before everything is done!  It is still totally removable for work on the platform.
 

 
Stay Building my Friends,
Mark

Hello all,
 
Here is another update with the progress over the last couple of weeks.
Alexandru
 

Thanks Buck, David and especially Russell for the very nice gift. I've finished one bottle already :
 

 
  Danny

Lou,
 
You're not "bad".  This topic got previously hijacked, to put it simply.
 
We all have our methods and reasoning for what we use and how we use it.  I, for one, am amazed at the tolerances of some suppliers and also by the lack of tolerances by some others.   Consistency is what I look for and if I have to use a Crown or a Hobbymill to get it, so be it..   In other words, if I'm slicing 1/16" planks off a slab that's supposed to be 1/8" for 1/16"X1/8" planking, I don't want to find out that it wavers all over the place and in some places is less than 1/8" thick.   I'll thickness it down, but I can't add thickness to it.  
 
For you and others, milling your own wood is great.  For people like myself, not so great.   I don't have the time, space, or equipment.  This is truly a topic of "whatever floats your boat".   I'll slice planks off a slab, etc. but dealing with anything bigger than 1"X 4" is out of the question. 
 
And for the record, I do take umbrage with someone (not you) painting scratch builders who don't mill their own wood are somehow less than those who do.  An artist is an artist, doesn't matter if they grind their pigments and mix their own or buy them in a tube. We have artisans (not me by a long shot) here who do mill their own, others who don't.
 
I'll go quietly now....

I dont own a drum sander.  Many folks dont.   I dont have a bandsaw either.   Many folks dont.   I also find my most precious item these days is time.   Like with other items and kit products available,  the last thing I want to do is buy something only to have to fix it so it meets my standards.   As a guy who would rather spend his limited time on the fun stuff,  I am just happy there is one wood supplier I can count on that supplies me with a product I dont have spend hours making usable.  OR spend extra money buying the tools to do so.  
 
I see nothing wrong with being extra happy about one thing that is actually supplied as advertised. So few things are these days.  There arent many places like this and I am very fortunate to have the resource.  Literally....Syren Ship Model Company would be out of business if I had to spend the time needed to re-thickness the amount of wood I use.   
 
I am sure everyone can mill their own if they wanted to and if they had the tools.   I just dont want to.   Thank you Jason for making my life a whole lot easier.   And the same goes for countless other model builders.     I ve got nothing but love for ya baby!!!  It made the difference between me being in business and out of business.